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Now the reasoning faculty which undertakes this problem is not
a unity but a thing of parts; it brings the bodily nature into
the enquiry, borrowing its principles from the corporeal: thus it
thinks of the Essential Existence as corporeal and as a thing of
parts; it baulks at the unity because it does not start from the
appropriate principles. We, however, must be careful to bring the
appropriately convincing principles to the discussion of the
Unity, of perfect Being: we must hold to the Intellectual
principles which alone apply to the Intellectual Order and to
Real Being.
On the one hand there is the unstable, exposed to all sorts of
change, distributed in place, not so much Being as Becoming: on
the other, there is that which exists eternally, not divided,
subject to no change of state, neither coming into being nor
falling from it, set in no region or place or support, emerging
from nowhere, entering into nothing, fast within itself.
In dealing with that lower order we would reason from its own
nature and the characteristics it exhibits; thus, on a plausible
foundation, we achieve plausible results by a plausible system of
deduction: similarly, in dealing with the Intellectual, the only
way is to grasp the nature of the essence concerned and so lay
the sure foundations of the argument, not forgetfully straying
over into that other order but basing our treatment on what is
essential to the Nature with which we deal.
In every entity the essential nature is the governing principle
and, as we are told, a sound definition brings to light many even
of the concomitants: where the essential nature is the entire
being, we must be all the more careful to keep to that, to look
to that, to refer all to that.
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